BARASSI LiNE

[Garlic muncher]

The ACT whilst being quite cosmopolitan in its sporting tastes leans far more towards the rugby codes then AFL.

Read on Canberra Times, tell me what you see.

This is despite the fact that:-
AFL / GWS is on FTA tv - RU not on FTA / raiders not on FTA
AFL spend on DOs and junior programs in the ACT would dwarf all other sports put together.

You got proof that the local ACT AFL spend more on junior programs than all other sports put together ?.

That seems a really odd thing to say.

If as you say that the ACT leans more towards the rugby codes, why do more than 50% of the teams across the local RL comp come from outside the ACT with a miniscule population compared to the population inside the ACT ?.

 

[Garlic muncher]

My take on the Barassi line, which i do actually find quite interesting.

Hasn't moved much for 100 years, moved up the South Coast of NSW to about Batemans Bay in the last 30 due to due to local interest, sea changers, Victorians moving northward along the coast and people from ACT and even Riverina moving down to the South Coast.

I doubt whether it will move much at all now, the population along the line is not huge, it is generally all areas of low density.

The Barassi line basically stopped moving when farming land available along it was sold or bought out and wont change much now due to not much money in farming.

 

[NoobPie]

My take on the Barassi line, which i do actually find quite interesting.

Hasn't moved much for 100 years, moved up the South Coast of NSW to about Batemans Bay in the last 30 due to due to local interest, sea changers, Victorians moving northward along the coast and people from ACT and even Riverina moving down to the South Coast.

I doubt whether it will move much at all now, the population along the line is not huge, it is generally all areas of low density

The Barassi line basically stopped moving when farming land available along it was sold or bought out and wont change much now due to not much money in farming.

Great post Gm. I think it just goes to demonstrate how deeply ingrained cultural the two football codes are in rural areas and their small towns. Best chance footy has in deepening the footprint in regional areas above the barassi line is to stick to the bigger towns (eg 5k plus)

 

[AliceCat]

My take on the Barassi line, which i do actually find quite interesting.

Hasn't moved much for 100 years, moved up the South Coast of NSW to about Batemans Bay in the last 30 due to due to local interest, sea changers, Victorians moving northward along the coast and people from ACT and even Riverina moving down to the South Coast.

I doubt whether it will move much at all now, the population along the line is not huge, it is generally all areas of low density.

The Barassi line basically stopped moving when farming land available along it was sold or bought out and wont change much now due to not much money in farming.

Nice work.

Pretty much how it was when we grew up in the Riverina a few years back. That said it's now a bit stronger in the major centres like Wagga and Griffith.

What has changed has been the strength of footy in Canberra. The AFL is as other have said making a big play for the ACT.

Would like to see more footy developed further up the south coast i.e. Wollongong.

 

[Fitzcray]

The only reason footy isn't as big in the main centres of NSW and QLD is the generational thing.

Most kids follow what their parents follow. If rugby league and football started fresh tomorrow with no history my belief is we wouldn't be even talking about a Barassi Line.

That entire piece of land that most of us call Australia would otherwise known as Barassi.

When I am on the receiving end of taunts from rugby league people when I am in Sydney, my most common response is to tell them they are brainwashed by their parents. They tend to shut up after that. Luckily for them.

 

[Fletched]

Nice work.

Pretty much how it was when we grew up in the Riverina a few years back. That said it's now a bit stronger in the major centres like Wagga and Griffith.

What has changed has been the strength of footy in Canberra. The AFL is as other have said making a big play for the ACT.

Would like to see more footy developed further up the south coast i.e. Wollongong.

If we could push the line north until it meets with Canberra would be pretty nice

 

[Garlic muncher]

If we could push the line north until it meets with Canberra would be pretty nice

I will call the home guard out

It is what it is, between where the Barassi line ends and Canberra starts is not really a highly populated area, in the scheme of things pretty inconsequential.

If you drive up the Hume highway north the Barassi line is at approximately Kyeamba or Tarcutta where i have marked with a red line, go another 50k up the Hume to Gundagai and it is RL heartland.

Tarcutta is about smack dab between Melbourne and |Sydney.

Anything west of Tarcutta under Wagga is the the Strong Hume League where no RL exists and anything East of the Hume is pretty well RL heartland till you reach Canberra, although you have the Upper Murray FL pushing up from Corryong with Tumbarumba, Border Walwa in NSW.

Both Cootamundra and Yass have footy teams that play in the Canberra AFL in 3 or 4th division.

 

[HomokHarcos]

It seems like to me New South Wales is actively hating against Aussie rules calling it GayFL while Victorians are just indifferent about rugby league.

 

[Garlic muncher]

It seems like to me New South Wales is actively hating against Aussie rules calling it GayFL while Victorians are just indifferent about rugby league.

IMO that has been happening for over 100 years from a small but not inconsequential % of the NSW population.

 

[Lobster Effect]

Would another way of describing the barrasi line be what sport is shown on the front of the local sports newspaper? (I.e if you look at the Herald in Newcastle it's going to show league rather than afl)

 

[AliceCat]

It seems like to me New South Wales is actively hating against Aussie rules calling it GayFL while Victorians are just indifferent about rugby league.

Which can make for plenty of bemusement when your from NSW and follow Aussie Rules.

However times are changing.

 

[Garlic muncher]

Would another way of describing the barrasi line be what sport is shown on the front of the local sports newspaper? (I.e if you look at the Herald in Newcastle it's going to show league rather than afl)

No, the Barassi line is a area that would show both on the front pages, obviously at different times, but both would get a fair run.

Newcastle is not on the Barassi line.

Wagga is though.

Its a grey area where neither AF or RL is really dominant.

 

[TigerCraig]

Would another way of describing the barrasi line be what sport is shown on the front of the local sports newspaper? (I.e if you look at the Herald in Newcastle it's going to show league rather than afl)

Although, I remember when I was playing in the Black Diamond comp in Newcastle back in the 80's they used to show the results on the evening news and even show a bit of footage. Don't know if they still do. (it may have helped that the main newsreader was a footy umpire as well)

 

[papabear]

You got proof that the local ACT AFL spend more on junior programs than all other sports put together ?.

That seems a really odd thing to say.

If as you say that the ACT leans more towards the rugby codes, why do more than 50% of the teams across the local RL comp come from outside the ACT with a miniscule population compared to the population inside the ACT ?.

Thought the spend was common knowledge.

Re the spread of sides, interest in a sport isnt just garnished through junior numbers as if you are going to give a pass for AFL having less juniors then soccer, because AFL is more physical / brutal (less popular junior sport then soccer) then you have to do the same with RL and AFL.

It does lean more to the rugby codes, but it doesnt faze me if people want to keep circling it in there funny maps pretending it is afl territory.

 

[papabear]

It seems like to me New South Wales is actively hating against Aussie rules calling it GayFL while Victorians are just indifferent about rugby league.

this notion that most ardent AFL fans are indifferent about rugby league yet these threads exist.

its just utter garbage.

 

[papabear]

Yep dont be cowered by by the numbskulls and keep wearing the colours This is one reason I buy a GWS membership every year to help support them as I know I would be hard to follow them in western Sydney

So what your saying is, there is a portion of Victorian fans so desperate for a greater Western Sydney AFL franchise to succeed that they will give up their hard earned cash to give to said franchise...

I wonder what proportion of GWS fan base is just AFL proselytes?

Why dont you give that money to club you support, buy double membership and artificially boost your own clubs numbers?

 

[Colonial]

this notion that most ardent AFL fans are indifferent about rugby league yet these threads exist.

its just utter garbage.

Please there are muppets on both sides of the fence.
Hense your comments.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

 

[papabear]

The problem with league - and why I prefer to watch union over league - is that there just isn't enough risk taking. It's very much a sport where playing the safe option will generally mean you're better off, because taking risks mean a greater chance of mistakes, and mistakes are heavily punished. You're probably better off taking the tackle and getting another go rather than doing something exciting, as opposed to union where you aren't necessarily going to get that next tackle, so the incentive is there to throw it around a bit.
I get your point about union in that there's a lot of standing around waiting for scrums, penalty kicks on goal, lineouts etc. But I think overall it beats the predictable nature of league - tackle tackle tackle tackle tackle kick repeat. That's not to say league doesn't have it's good points (usually on the last tackle close to the line), but IMO the game doesn't encourage it enough.

The risk / reward ratios in both sports are different.

A union player will never willingly give up possession for no territory, but will for the right territory gain.
In league a league player will never willingly give up possession for anything except potential try scoring opportunity.

That is the nature of the game.

That said the nature of rugby league imo being a game of fundamentally - stop the other side breaking your line, or break the other sides line, without much of the territory battle in union leads to far better plays to break lines and far better defences to stop line breaks.

For instance, penrith ran a tip on play right before half time where the halfback receiving it wide, thought the defence was jamming so he tried to tip it on over the top to the unmarked winger, the defence read it ran the length and effectively killed the game. Oddly enough penrith still managed to come back and win the thing.

In a game of pro union, you wont get a tip on play, nor will you get a defender making that intercept or jamming in to smash them.

Fundamentally, pro union games can be won on territory through penalties. If you like that sort of thing thats fine. but imo the ardent AFL fans who enjoy pro union more then pro league do so because of there own fears / biases against pro league. In the exact same way imo that ardent rugby league fans who may rate a more boring sport ahead of AFL.

Also the australian teams are sucking fat ones at the moment.

I want to reiterate though that I do enjoy amatuer union and a big game just like anyone, however, just like the hotel I hold the opinion of a hotel I stayed at in melbourne that described league as a faster potentailly more exciting version of the rugby codes, in the section where it craps on about melbourne being the heart of sport in the universe.

 

[papabear]

Please there are muppets on both sides of the fence.
Hense your comments.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

Of course there are. I never infer any different point.

 

[papabear]

The Barassi Line promotes interesting discussion and we all want it to move closer to the capital cities of Sydney and Brisbane.

The success of GWS has brought a stronger football mentality to western suburbs of Sydney, but if you find yourself in the hardcore NRL areas you can really be a target of abuse.

I would not recommend wearing AFL garments down the main street of Bankstown or Church Street in Parramatta. Some of it gets quite hurtful.

I purchased some footy gear from the huge sports shop in Parramatta one day and put the clothes on straight away and was chastised by this gang.

They promote this sports shop as rugby league but there is an impressive amount of AFL gear so I recommend this store for people stranded in Sydney looking for football clothing.

A relative of the late great Mick Nolan directed me towards this store called Peter Winns.

Peter Wynns stocking AFL gear.

A shout out to a rugby league shop:-
1 - following the mighty dollar as all businesses should
2 - servicing the AFL market when otherwise the gear might be otherwise hard to find.

 

[madmug]

It seems like to me New South Wales is actively hating against Aussie rules calling it GayFL while Victorians are just indifferent about rugby league.

Having lived & worked in both places, in a number of suburbs & worksites. Let me assure you that what I saw is that Melbourne has the chip about Sydney, most in Sydney couldnt care less about Melbourne, where it is, or what it does. Plain & simple.

 

[papabear]

The one thing I struggle to reconcile on this board is generally of all AFL fans, magpies/geelong/freo fans tends to be the most appreciative of rugby league due to the similar nature of the socio economic struggle of both groups of people.

Both the magpies and rugby League were pretty much unloved and unwanted by everyone else in the same space, everyone wished they would just * off and die, yet they battled on.

Yet on this thread 'ourgame' and 'noobpie' two of the more vocal anti rugby league people on hereboth happen to be from that group of fans. I mean two is hardly a large sample size with which to draw any correlation or causation but still odd. Maybe the codewar messages through the media and defensive nature if starting to work the other way.

 

[papabear]

Having lived & worked in both places, in a number of suburbs & worksites. Let me assure you that what I saw is that Melbourne has the chip about Sydney, most in Sydney couldnt care less about Melbourne, where it is, or what it does. Plain & simple.

QFT

 

[LightTower4]

Having lived & worked in both places, in a number of suburbs & worksites. Let me assure you that what I saw is that Melbourne has the chip about Sydney, most in Sydney couldnt care less about Melbourne, where it is, or what it does. Plain & simple.

Really?
Was in Sydney a few weeks ago for work and copped a barrage of insults from cab drivers to clients regarding the weather (while it was raining NON STOP for 4 days) Gay AFL, what is there to do down there, Mexicans etc. etc.

 

[BobbyMorri]

Melbourne and Sydney have been going at each other for the last 150 years. they are both as bad as each other. hence Canberra.